3 June 2026
Uneven Datafication: Political Economy of Digital Colonial Capitalism
Prof. Dr. Azadeh Akbari
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, DE
This paper develops the concept of uneven datafication, drawing on literature on coloniality, uneven development, and dependency theory. Uneven datafication refers to uneven development in the contemporary political economy of data, showing how global cycles of differentiation and totalisation perpetuate inequality to sustain capitalist structures. Datafication is neither homogeneous nor universal, but marked by colonial continuities, spatial differentiation, and temporal unevenness. Uneven datafication operates through three interrelated dynamics. First, territorialisation, deterritorialisation, and reterritorialisation produce uneven geographies of digital colonial capitalism, from datafied bodies to platform infrastructures and space-based data centres. Second, dispossession enacts spatial, temporal, and dehumanising violence, ranking populations as more or less valuable and enforcing biopower ‘within’ and necropower ‘beyond’. Third, unequal exchange sustains asymmetrical valuation and circulation of data and data labour, enabling Big Tech and core economies to extract surplus value from peripheral regions.
Uneven datafication thus sustains colonial capitalist accumulation through differentiated dispossession and dependency across populations, spaces, and classes.
About the Speaker
Azadeh Akbari is Professor of Critical Data & Surveillance Studies at the Center for Critical Computational Studies (C³S) and a faculty member in the Institute for Human Geography at Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research focuses on the geopolitics of digital transformation, digital authoritarianism, data justice, and ICTs for development. Azadeh Akbari is a director of Surveillance Studies Network and the founder and director of Surveillance in the Majority World Research Network. She is also an associate editor at the journal Surveillance & Society. Azadeh Akbari identifies as an academic/activist and works closely with journalists, civil society, and policymakers on issues of surveillance and digital repression.
photo credit: Azadeh Akbari, cropped
Lecture Time and Location
Wednesday, 3 June 2026
18:15–19:45 (CEST)
Flügelbau Ost, 2. OG, Raum O 221
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg
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